Two of the most rapidly growing and developing areas of technology today are wireless communications and the Internet. Not surprisingly, these two technologies are experiencing a rapid convergence, much as wire-based telephony and personal computers converged in the 1990's and continue to do so today.
One of the primary motivating factors behind the convergence of wireless telephony and Internet technology is the ubiquitous presence of the World Wide Web in all facets of society. E-mail, e-commerce, entertainment, business-to-business commerce, and many other resources are commonly available as World Wide Web resources. Not surprisingly, consumers desire to have such resources be as convenient and mobile as today's hand-held devices, such as cellular telephones and personal digital assistants (PDA's). Because the Internet and World Wide Web developed based upon wire-based telephony and relatively powerful computers, several technological hurdles must be overcome before the World Wide Web can be accessed from a wireless device with sufficient ease and convenience to make the Web a truly wireless resource.
One service provided by the World Wide Web that is rapidly growing in usage and popularity is so-called locator services. A locator service functions essentially as an electronic yellow pages. A user can identify a particular type of destination, such as a restaurant, type of store, or public park, and the locator service will identify the name and address of destinations in the vicinity that match the user's criteria. In order to use the locator service, however, the user must know the service's web address or URI.
One shortcoming in a typical current wireless access device is the limited means for inputting data, such as the uniform resource identifier (URI) of a desired Web resource. Whereas the typical Web user uses a personal computer (PC) with a mouse and keyboard for inputting information, a wireless access device user generally must rely upon a cumbersome and tedious process of inputting a URI one letter at a time using the limited keypad capabilities of a typical cellular telephone or PDA. This is because cell phone and PDA's were developed to provide other functions, and were not originally intended for the type of data input intensive operations Web browsing often entails.
The shortcomings of wireless access devices are exacerbated by the fact that such devices are typically used when the end-user is outside of his or her home, oftentimes engaged in other activities such as walking or driving. Under those circumstances, it is most undesirable that the user be distracted from the primary task (such as driving) in order to tediously input a request for location services one letter at a time.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method whereby World Wide Web resources, as well as other resources available over the Internet or some other computer network, can be easily accessed using the functionality provided in a typical wireless access device.
Another shortcoming in the prior art is that most locator services available on the World Wide Web were designed for stationary users, such as consumers located at a stationary desktop workstation. These systems fail to recognize that the location of a mobile user (such as a user on a mobile cellular telephone) can be an important factor in identifying or selecting from among several destinations (such as restaurants) that would be of interest/benefit to the user. Therefore, a need exists in the art for a system that not only allows for easy and convenient inputting of information to a locator service, but also one that provides a flexible response based at least in part on the user's current location.